RAGGED THOTS

Robert A. George's ruminations on politics, race, pop culture, sports, comic books & various other sundry temptations of the human condition. Yes, he writes for the New York Post, but the views here are solely his own.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Open Thread

Since it's been two weeks since our last O.T., I'm hoping y'all will be especially stimulatin'!!

Car Purchases: Hard Sell, No Hard Drive

Mother Jones, of all places, explains why it's almost impossible to buy new cars online. To maintain its lefty cred, MJ has to partly blame Ronald Reagan and George Bush, even though its own story explains that it's a bit more complicated than that. Don't miss the comment section, with several readers chiming in that it's good for jobs that consumers don't have the online option.

In fairness, there's no reason why the lady shouldn't get an award. However, given the reports on the severity of her injuries from the Brown beat-down, I can't think that a public appearance would do wonders for either her or the NAACP's "image."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Brett's All, Folks!!!

Yeah, we've been down this road before, but this time it looks like it's for real: Brett Favre, has told his agent to let the New York Jets know that No. 4 is, ahem, "packing" it up forever. It's hardly a surprise, at this point. And, unlike last year, when Favre arrived almost out of the blue, with great expectations (probably a bit too great) all around -- the feeling now is, thanks for the year, Brett. There were some good times and there were some disappointments. The Jets have a new coach, have a good running game and a not-bad defense. Sure, we now no longer have a real quarterback, but, hey, why be greedy?!?!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Commanding The Room

Though he's got two more prime-time appearances coming up in the next couple of weeks, President Obama may not have to worry about wearing out his welcome too much if they are like his his first press conference Monday. If nothing else -- despite his slaps against conservative governance of the last eight years -- Obama must have had many Republicans shaking their heads mournfully: "Wow. There's a guy who knows how to command a press conference and use it to drive his policy agenda." The GOP hasn't had anyone since Reagan who could use his press conference as both a sales platform and to toss out a dollop of partisan swats at the same time. (Obama though might want to watch the latter a bit. There seemed a little-little-bit-more-than-necessary "campaign-like" rhetoric going after the Republicans for running up the debt in the previous eight years. It's an accurate statement, but hardly one that would continue to develop the bipartisan atmosphere that Obama cites as one of his major goals.)

Still, from the moment he came to the podium and opened with his prepared remarks, the staffing woes and bad press of last week became a distant memory. Obama stood as commander of his agenda (rather than the man forced into a defensive crouch in the last couple weeks by the Democratic Congress' larding up of the bill). He zipped out statistics on job loss in Elkhart, Indiana -- and travails in Miami...made a specific comparison of what the loss of near-600,000 jobs last month meant: "nearly the equivalent of losing every single job in the state of Maine." His delivery is crisp and confident. The only aspect of the press conference that betrayed Obama's rookie status was his reliance on a "cheat-sheet" list for the reporters he wished to call on. Of course, after a few of these, he'll know who everybody is. (Even the newbies, of which there were quite a few: The Huffington Post's reporter, Sam Stein was called upon! That's not merely a breakthrough for the liberal press, but also a first for the non-traditional media as well.)

When asked about whether the lack of Republican votes on his stimulus votes demonstrated that his vaunted attempts at bipartisanship were a failure, he deftly demurred, saying that he wasn't reaching out to the GOP solely for short-term votes, but as a longer-term approach which he hopes will bear fruit down the road.

The most notable aspect of this news conference was it was that it wasn't something we've seen in nearly a decade: George W. Bush never liked press conferences. He did them when he had to, but rarely showed much pleasure in the process. Bill Clinton initially enjoyed press conferences, but by the end of his second term -- after dealing with multiple scandals culminating in impeachment, the relationship between the Clinton White House and the press was fairly toxic. So, here is a new president, still feeling his oats, confident that his charisma and command of the facts -- as he perceives them -- is enough to keep the public rallied to his side on the stimulus.Of course, the questions will inevitably arise, exactly how does one guage the success in "creating or saving 4 million jobs"? How can you know if a job has been saved? What's the benchmark there? If the country loses "only" 400,000 jobs in February, instead of the 598,000 lost this month, is that considered a "saving" of 198,00? That's not a question that is easily answered.

One more thing thing Obama might want to be careful of -- something that was never a problem for Reagan, was to leaven the heavy talk with a healthy dose of smiles and humor. Obama's demeanor through most of the press conference was serious, perhaps even bordering on dour.

Ironically, one moment that did elicit both a smile from Obama (and several chuckles from the press corps) was Major Garrett's question about what Joe Biden meant when he said that they would get "30 percent of things wrong." Obama "I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to -- not surprisingly -- but let me try this out...I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentages." But, does President Obama need Joe Biden to help bring out his lighter side? He'd do much better -- though undoubtedly driving Republicans and conservatives nuts in the process -- if he just showed more of it naturally.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

SNL Tosses Michael Phelps A Lifeline

A good friend of mine recently said, "Why's everyone so surprised that Michael Phelps was caught with a bong? After all, it is a a water pipe!" As for everything else, well, Seth Myers nailed it last night on SNL (especially liked the "What do we tell the kids?" line):

Admittedly, Phelps did recently guest host Saturday Night Live, so the show is kind of coming to the rescue of it buddy. And SNL's, ahem, 'history' with drug use doesn't exactly give them a pristine platform from which to pontificate...but, really! It's not exactly as if Phelps hasn't sacrificed a lot to reach the upper pinacle of his sport. Pot-smoking is illegal -- and a whole lot of perfectly competent and successful people did it in their late-teens and early-20s (if not later). Many of those people are running cities, states and this country right now. So, let's spare the faux outrage and move on. And, Michael? Get a better set of friends -- at least some that you can trust not to sell you out to the next media outlet waving some money around.